Offbeat
by trufflemores
Summary: 2.09. Barry has a rough day.


Crime rates always spike around the holidays.

There's something about the hundreds of dollars changing hands and walking home in shopping bags that draws even the most casual criminals out of the woodwork. Barry has been working overtime just to keep up with it; the police department is rarely quiet, coffee machines in perpetual use (and, it seems, equally constant disrepair). They haven't had a quiet day since mid-November: diffusing hostile situations, breaking up street confrontations, and of course, rescuing the occasional victim from a burning building.

They try to leave the majority of cases to the police because, as Cisco eloquently puts it, "There aren't twelve of you; you can't be _everywhere_ , Barry." But there's a lot of meta-human activity thrown in: every day, it seems, a new one makes itself known. The police can't do anything about reports of a giant fucking _shark-man_ , so Barry spends every other night hunting it down, never quite able to find it.

(Shark-man even helpfully introduces himself: scrawling in big red letters "KING SHARK" on seemingly every viable inch of concrete.)

To make matters even more headache-inducing than scrubbing graffiti off the front of Jitters for the _fourth_ time at God-knows-what-time, Barry has another old friend to contend with: Leonard Snart. Captain Cold has him on speed dial and seems to take a profound amount of enjoyment telling him about how _nippy_ the weather is, how _chilly_ it seems, how it might be time to _take things down a notch_. Because his calling in life is stealing things and his newest hobby is annoying Barry, he calls him at odd hours in the morning just to let him know that he really appreciates their civil agreement: Cold doesn't go public with Barry's identity, and Barry doesn't track him down.

The weather is even to Cold's liking: snowy. And not just snowy, oh no. It _blizzards_. For almost three days solid, Central City gets more than four feet of snow.

It's not a happy medium to wade through at super speeds: snow has a tendency to turn _very_ slick the second he starts running through it, and it's still a physical barrier, sapping his energy whole orders faster than it would on dry ground.

So, Cisco watches a few nature documentaries about rabbits, cooks up some supersonic snowshoes, and tells him, "Go get 'em, tiger."

And okay, he has to admit: _wow._ Skiing seven hundred miles an hour is a _blast._

And he means that literally, too, as he plunges into another wall of snow, obliterating it into a shower of snowflakes instantaneously.

At least the kids standing nearby get a laugh from it.

. o .

"You know, we haven't had any King Shark sightings in a few days," Barry comments, stepping inside Star Labs, soaking wet, plopping himself unceremoniously in front of the electric fire, throwing off waves of heat. "Maybe he hibernates."

"Sharks don't hibernate," Caitlin reminds him.

Barry frowns thoughtfully, doing a slow revolution in the spinning chair. "So you think he died?"

"No," Caitlin says, "I think he's just doing what everyone else is: hunkering down until it's warmer."

Barry tries to picture a thirteen-foot-tall shark-man hybrid perched delicately on a sagging couch in front of a tiny TV watching football and has to laugh.

"What's so funny?" Cisco asks, reappearing with armfuls of laundry and dropping them to the floor when he sees Barry, exasperation written in every line of his face. "Dude. I _just_ dried out your last suit."

"Water is _still_ wet," Barry reminds him, struggling to peel off the _mask_ , he's never getting the rest of the suit off until it dries a little more. Recognizing the futility of waiting for nature to catch up, he shakes himself like a dog, letting out a sigh of relief as he sheds the now-dry suit, blushing when he realizes – "Oh. Hi, Caitlin. I didn't realize you were standing there."

Caitlin draws in a very restrained breath and Barry catches the gray sweater and pants Cisco throws at him with his face. "Is it too late to say sorry?" he asks.

"It is," Caitlin replies. "You're lucky we have so many sweaters," she adds, angling off to the cabinet and pulling one out, swapping tops.

Barry drags on the pants before pulling the sweater on carefully, savoring the warmth of it against his skin.

"What were you even chasing?" Cisco asks. "We haven't had a call in hours."

"Oh," Barry says, and blushes, because: "I just – went for a run."

Caitlin and Cisco give him a look.

"So," Barry interjects, rubbing his hands together, warm and dry and ready to go (and eager to avoid making any more missteps), "what've we got?"

Cisco retrieves his stash of red vines, pops one in his mouth, and logs into the system. "Looks like there's a shop robbery in progress," he says, "and a house fire. Department should be there in six minutes; ETA on robbery is two."

Barry nods, Flashing into his suit, saying, "On it," before he's gone.

The house fire is easy enough: there's only one occupant, a very anxious St. Bernard puppy, and it definitely _does not_ feel like a puppy as Barry lifts it into his arms with a staggering effort and Flashes back outside. He _oomphs_ when the puppy eagerly turns on him and actually _tackles_ him, licking his face until he manages a muffled, "Easy, buddy," and shimmies out from underneath her.

Cisco asks, "You okay?"

Barry hits the mic on his mask, huffs out, "Fine, just a very big puppy" and takes off before Cisco can ask.

Cisco's still laughing in his head set when he takes out the robbery team, disarming and handcuffing both men, letting the cops who jump in with a sharp, " _Freeze!_ " take care of the rest.

He waits thirty seconds, vibrating in place and keeping an eye on things as the cops remove the perpetrators, and then the room _explodes_.

A bullet punches into his shoulder from behind and he staggers under the impact, feeling time slow down as he turns sharply and sees the third man, his arms frozen in position.

Barry takes a breath to calm the screaming pain in his shoulder and starts to _run,_ grabbing the first person he can and Flashing them outside, grabbing the man who _shot him_ and dropping him unceremoniously in front of an armed officer, rushing back inside and repeating the process over and over and over. He moves as fast as he can because shit, fuck, there have to be thirty people here and he can't take more than one out at a time, and the fireball is growing and he needs to _move faster_.

He doesn't know how fast shock waves travel, his shoulder is killing him, and there are still six people in the building when he hears a loud _boom_ and he's finally thrown clean off his feet, blasted out of the shop into the snow.

He gets to his feet, ears ringing loudly, and rushes back inside without a second thought even though the roof is collapsing and there's fire and smoke because there they are, corners, near the door, and he Flashes them, practically dives for cover with the sixth man as the roof finally caves in.

His ears are still ringing and he can't quite see straight, struggles to make out everyone's faces, keeping his own blurred, and his headset isn't working but he still clicks the mic out of habit to say, "It's okay. Everyone's out."

Someone puts a gentle hand on his arm and he's too stunned to pull away, and he turns and it's _Patty_ , uniformed, ready to _help people_ , and he tries to tell her that she needs to help them, there are six people with pretty serious burns and possible fractures who desperately need assistance and four times as many with possible shock injuries, they're _alive_ but they need to be kept that way, except –

Her concentration is absolute as she stares at him and says firmly, "Hey, stay with me."

His jaw aches from the pressure of keeping his face blurred; speech is beyond him as she draws him away from the pandemonium, the screams and gasps and retching noises, the cops on the line and paramedics already working on assessing the human damage.

He's aware that his legs are shaking and keeping himself upright is becoming harder, and harder, and harder, and there's a dull, penetrating ache in his shoulder that makes it hard to focus, but he still manages a dry swallow and a deep breath.

She's got an arm under his shoulders, supporting him, and he can't fight it as she pulls him around a corner, out of sight, out of mind, and it's that instant that his concentration falters and his jaw stops aching.

And she says, " _Barry_ ," and it feels like another bullet, straight to the chest, and he cringes, knowing that he's made, that he can't undo it, that he's going to have _so much_ explaining to do.

"I'm sorry," he says seriously, and it takes every ounce of will power he possesses to pull out of her grasp and _run_.

He doesn't make it all the way home, disorientated, struggling for breath, collapsing in the hallway.

It's barely seconds but it feels like hours later before he hears footsteps running his way, and somehow he holds onto consciousness, clings to it, fights for it, needing to know if everyone is still _okay_ , that he got them all out and the police and medics are handling it, that it isn't just the first round.

Then Caitlin and Cisco are there, and the pain in his shoulder is becoming unbearable, throbbing, and the only thing he can gasp is, "Get it out of me, there's a bullet in my shoulder, _get it out_ " and he still can't hear right, it's muffled, underwater, and Cisco helps Caitlin haul him to his feet and drag him back to the main lab.

Two minutes of agony later, it's over.

He's sitting on a gurney breathing heavily through his mouth, explaining in clipped gasps what happened while Cisco pries him out of his snowshoes. (Barry notices he doesn't complain about all the water he's getting on the floor; appreciates the consideration, for what it's worth.)

"Patty," he manages, "she was there, she saw me, she saw my _face_."

Cisco and Caitlin exchange another unreadable look, and he really wishes his ears would stop ringing, it would make it _a lot_ easier to focus, but they will soon and he holds onto that thought.

Helpfully, they speak.

"I mean, she was gonna find out eventually, right?" Cisco says slowly.

"It'll be fine," Caitlin adds, sounding unconvinced.

"What's the worst that can happen?"

"It'll be fine," Caitlin repeats, more firmly. Then: "You just got _shot_. You need to take a breath."

"There was a third guy," Barry babbles, and his voice feels weird, scratchy, like it doesn't belong to him, and there's emotion pouring out of him, like he's drunk, trying to offer a full confession, to _help them_. "I didn't see him. I wasn't paying attention, it didn't seem like there were any metas involved – how hard could it be? It was supposed to be a quick job, it _was_ a quick job, and I just- I wasn't paying _attention_ , I—"

"Look at me," Caitlin interjects.

He complies, feeling his breath heaving in his chest, his fingertips cold from more than the snow. He takes stock and realizes he's shaking, but he doesn't feel cold, he just feels a strange tightness in his chest, and it doesn't hurt but it also sort of feels like a heart attack, and maybe he is having a heart attack, can being shot induce a heart attack?

He's reaching for his collar, tugging at it, trying to free it, and he gets the face mask off and he's breathing deliberately hard, trying to make each breath more substantial because _why_ can't he _breathe._

Cisco sits next to him, endures the iciness of Barry's suit against his skin to tuck an arm around his back, squeezing it hard. "We're right here. It's okay."

"I can't breathe," he says, prying at his suit, tugging down the zip on the front. "I can't – something's wrong, I can't –"

"It's okay," Cisco tells him again.

It's not, it's-not-it's-not-it's-not, and he's going to pass out, he's practically wheezing with panic, and then Cisco says, "It's over."

He's shaking his head slightly, and somewhere he's aware of Caitlin helping him out of the top half of his suit, careful, so careful, scarcely touching the bandage on his shoulder, and Barry wishes he could focus on it, anything other than the terror swelling in his chest because Patty knows and so many people and _not fast enough_ —

Cisco and Caitlin aren't worried, though, and it sets something in him at ease, makes the pounding in his chest _manageable._ It's hard, but he finds the strength to pull on the shirt Caitlin hands him, grimacing as it grazes the already fast-healing wound on his shoulder. He clenches a handful of the fabric and commands his lungs to work, feeling Cisco's arm strong and steady around his back.

After a time – an uncountable time – his world slowly comes back into focus.

Caitlin has taken a seat close by, following something on her tablet, and Cisco's body heat is already making him feel safer, less likely to fall apart. Their sheer _calmness_ helps him refocus, helps him regain control, and he's barely aware of the piano music drifting from some corner of the room, but it's already bringing down his heart rate and breathing to match it.

"I'm sorry," he says at last.

Caitlin looks up at him, arches an eyebrow, and Cisco gives him a light shake. "Dude. No one chooses that."

Barry nods, lets himself lean against Cisco for a moment before Cisco gives him a last squeeze and lets him go, standing up.

Ten minutes later they're all sipping hot chocolate (and Barry's glad he took Cold's advice and picked up a bunch of those mini-marshmallows because their diminutive nature shouldn't make them taste better but it _does_ ), and Barry knows he is going to have one _hell_ of a talk with Patty later, want it or not, but for now, he has this.

Besides: Joe calls to tell them that everyone is okay and Barry lets his eyelids slide shut in momentary relief, feeling like a thousand pounds has fallen off his shoulders. (Which, he thinks, might accurately summarize the entire breadth of Shark Man, or, rather, King Shark.)

But there is no King Shark in the snow, just a new post on Iris' Flash blog about his endeavors and an imminent visit from her and Joe. Barry doesn't feel alarmed, can't be.

It's so _calm_.

He savors it, the way it's warm and heady and there's a light snow falling just outside their skylights and yeah, crime rates are higher around the holidays, but they're handling it, slowly, in their own way (just like they'll handle King Shark and _whoever_ Zoom throws at them; and Zoom himself, someday). Sometimes he just forgets that not every rescue they make is perfect.

Still.

Sitting cross-legged on the gurney nursing the cup between his warming hands, he can't help but smile as he says in a deep, slightly husky voice, "I'm going to have to start lifting weights if I have to rescue more St. Bernard puppies from house fires."

It's worth it just to make them laugh, the mental image of the Flash struggling under the weight of a sixty-pound puppy lightening the conversation considerably as Cisco speculates other unusual pets he might have to rescue.

(He makes it to reticulated pythons before Barry finally tosses a pillow in his face to shut him up.)


End file.
